Q & A’s

Identifying and Focusing on the “Big Rocks” Will Help to Make Mold Illness Recovery Less Overwhelming and Hopeless

As this blog grows one year older and I connect more and more with readers reaching out to me for advice about mold or other environmental toxins that are negatively affecting their lives and their health, I realize just how prevalent this form of illness truly is. It makes me wonder how many other people are out there needlessly suffering from undiagnosed, environmentally-triggered sickness. I am happy to have this platform to spread awareness and real information about mold, so that more people can have the tools to identify the cause of their symptoms and know the right questions to ask their doctors to help get their lives and their health back on track. But, I know that I cannot reach everyone. I guess that is why when someone writes to me for advice, I feel like it is my duty to offer them the best words of encouragement and the best information about possible solutions to help address their unique situation. Even though, I don’t have the professional licenses and certifications to be able to offer professional consultations and/or medical solutions, I can share my experiences and knowledge gained from fighting my own mold battle. So, while my advice is not always perfect and does not always contain one absolute answer or resolution, I am putting everything I have into my responses and am always giving the advice that I would’ve wanted someone to give to me—words rooted in honesty with valid, applicable action steps.

Today, I am going to share a recent reader’s email that includes almost all aspects of the mold/environmental illness theme:

Gradually failing health;

Multiple medical diagnoses without a real treatment plan or improvement in symptoms;

Physical displacement from the family home;

Loss of belongings and relationships;

Anxiety, confusion, and hopelessness.

I am sure at least one part of this reader’s story will resonate with anyone who has dealt with or is dealing with chronic or environmental illness. It may even be difficult for some of you to read, because it may hit very close to home. The reason I want to share it, though, and to share my response as well is because, I think that sometimes the realness and the complexity of this illness is forgotten. There are so many balls to juggle; that it can become overwhelming. When mold becomes problematic to your health, hurdles can be many and may include

Figuring out where the mold exposure is occurring—at home, at work, etc.;

Finding a safe, mold-free place to live or place to go temporarily;

Figuring out if you should and how to properly clean belongings and/or current living space;

Avoiding further mold exposures;

Finding a mold-literate doctor;

Adhering to a detox treatment plan to remove the mold from your body;

Navigating the lack of empathy or understanding from others and/or family members who are not sick and do not understand;

Figuring out how to pay for it all when much of the medical costs are not covered by insurance and, many times, sickness makes work impossible.

In other words, knowing how and where to begin is daunting, to say the least. But, beginning the healing process, no matter what the circumstance, is NOT impossible and is what I always want to impart.

When Your Belongings Have Been Contaminated by Mold, Can You Save Them?

What Works, What Doesn’t Work, and When to Cut Your Losses

What happens when you are trying to perform the difficult task of remediating your belongings after they have had a significant mold exposure? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot. There are so many little things that can affect, hamper, and negate all of your well-intentioned efforts. It can be very frustrating and time consuming. The most maddening part can actually be the fact that, even with the best, most meticulous cleaning and remediation efforts, and the most effective mold-specific products, some items just cannot be saved. This is a sad, but important truth that many people must come to terms with for the sake of their health.

Now, I realize that the topic of contents remediation is vast. There are so many different kinds of materials and items that can be contaminated with mold; therefore, I am not able to address everything in one post. But, I can share with you how I addressed this issue for a reader who tried cleaning some of his belongings that were exposed to mycotoxin-producing molds in his former home.

This reader’s former housing situation was not a good one and made him sick with mold toxicity. He has since moved to a mold-free space and is doing everything he can to keep that new space clean and safe. He is also trying to recover his health at the same time—making his endeavors that much harder, because any exposure or misstep could send him back into a relapse and having to re-initiate the detox and recovery progress. Thus, getting his belongings properly and safely remediated is very important before he brings them inside his new home. Wisely, he has tested all items with mold test plates before and after his efforts, so that he knows if what he is doing is working and which things are safe to introduce into his new home.

The reason he wrote me, though, is not for advice on methods or products to use. His problems are with the very frustrating test results AFTER his efforts to clean the items. As you will see, he tried fogging them outside with EC3. For greater a greater understanding, here is some of our email communication to get you up to speed:

Don’t Let Mold-Testing Fears Prevent You From Having a Healthier Home

I get it. Mold testing can be scary. Well, actually, I get that the testing itself is not the scary part. The results or the potential results and what they could possibly mean for your living situation, the well-being of your family—both emotionally and financially, and the future of your health are what’s scary. But, today I want to reassure you that fears of the unknown or worst-case scenarios should NOT deter you from testing and from continuing to test your home for mold. This is because when mold and your health are concerned, ignorance can be far from bliss. The continual exposure to mold can eventually take such a toll on your body that your symptoms will no longer allow you to ignore it and you’ll be forced to act. For mold-sensitive children, the effects could last a lifetime. To help you avoid such situations, I want to explain, with a real-world example from a reader, exactly how testing for mold and continually knowing what is going on in your home in terms of mold can be extremely helpful and beneficial to your peace of mind and health.

Do any of the following scenarios sound like you?

You are finally to the point when your health symptoms make you suspect mold in your home or indoor environment, and you want to test.

You have obvious high indoor humidity, musty odors, visible mold growth, or had a known leak, a wicked storm, or a water incident that lead you to want to test your home for elevated levels of mold spores or growth.

This isn’t your first rodeo, as they say, and you have done some remediation work yourself or had your home professionally remediated and are re-testing to make sure that all of the work to eliminate the mold is working.

Whatever the case, you decide to mold test your home, and await the results. This waiting time is when all of the “what ifs” start invading your mind: What if the tests come back showing that my house is moldy? Is it safe to stay in? Will I have to leave my home and all my things? What if I can’t afford to fix the problem? What if I have to leave my home? Where would I/we go? What if the “the fix” attempted doesn’t work?

Where to Begin, What to Do, and Who to Turn To When Mold in Your Crawlspace and Ductwork is Making You and Your Family Sick.

Today’s post comes directly from some recent communication that I have been having with a reader concerning properly remediating moldy HVAC ducts and a wet and moldy crawlspace. She lives in the humid Southeastern part of the United States and has been going through quite a bit of mold discovery and damage control. She is currently facing trying to correctly remedy the problem without spending her family into a financial hole. I definitely feel for her and want to help her navigate this. Much of what she is going through is similar to what we went through with the mold in our HVAC system—getting sick, linking our sickness to something in our environment, locating mold in our home, trying to determine if and how the mold could be safely removed, and finding the money, appropriate professionals, and mental fortitude to get it done.

The good news is that her questions are ones that I feel very confident in answering. These days, all of this “HVAC stuff” is in my wheelhouse, because during the course of our ordeal, I learned more about Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Heating and Air Conditioning Systems than I ever imagined. It’s funny how when your wellbeing hangs in the balance, suddenly learning about anything that could improve or destroy the health of those in your home becomes your new passion. The only problem is that now that I know how things should be done for optimum IAQ, I am angered when I hear others’ stories like ours where poor building practices and HVAC design on the front end from trusted “professionals” in the field have caused a home to harbor mold and other environmental contaminants that have made the occupants extremely sick.

In this reader’s case, as you will see, she trusted that everything was done and constructed correctly. She even took some bad advice on add-ons to her system, like a humidifier, thinking she was doing to right thing. It is only now as she faces remediating her crawlspace, ductwork, and HVAC system, that she has found that many things were initially done with subpar materials (aka builder grade) or with designs that did not mitigate mold or improve air quality, but rather, created excess indoor humidity and caused mold growth to occur.

Here is a summary of some of her emails, so that you can understand what she is dealing with:

When You Seem to be Sick Outside as Much as Inside….

My ultimate goal with this blog is to attempt to make this whole “mold thing” simpler. The concept of mold cross contamination happens to be one of the more confusing and debated pieces of the mold puzzle. I am going to try to tackle some of the difficult to understand, confusing, and conflicting information on that topic today and to break it down and present it to you in a way that makes some sense. In doing so, I hope each of you will feel empowered to use some of the tools and protocols I write about (that actually work, might I add) to take control of your situations and environments, so that you can get better and get on with your lives. That is also the main reason why I like sharing reader Q & A’s so much. I believe that by sharing some of my one-on-one correspondence, I can help others who have the same or similar questions–if there is one thing I’ve learned, it is that many people have questions, but very few actually take the time to ask.

That being said, not all personal advice is universally viable, because each of us is unique and should tweak and omit things according to what works best for our lives and bodies. Overall, though, I believe our goals are the same and hinge on adopting a “new normal” that

1) works to attain and keep wellness, and

2) doesn’t create fear or anxiety in the process.

To achieve those goals, you have to

1)learn as much information as possible about mold and why it makes you sick,and

2)learn as much information as possible about products and treatments that work for mold-related illness.

There is no magic cure, obviously, but there are some things that have, over time, proven to be more efficacious than others. That is where today’s reader Q & A comes in. It is a discussion that starts with a question about cross contamination, but that spans much more than that. It gets into the topic of cumulative body burden from previous mold exposures, how much your surroundings and outdoor environment matter to your recovery, and how using what you already know about your body’s reaction to mold helps you to make informed choices about your future.

To bring you up to speed with exactly what this reader is dealing with, I will share some portions of her email:

Embracing Your “New Normal” May Be the Key to Letting Go of Fear and Feeling More Like Yourself Again

The longer I write this blog and build relationships within our community of readers, the more those interactions impact what I write about. Often your questions are at the forefront of my mind when I am writing my weekly post. Sometimes, I have even been writing about an entirely different topic but get such an excellent reader question, that I halt and reroute everything I am doing to share it instead. Then, on days like today, I just cannot ignore the feeling that I NEED to write about a topic, because it has impacted one of you and is weighing on my heart. This is one of those posts.

A reader who I have gotten to know through our email correspondence is about to embark on her first travel experience since being impacted by mold illness. Her home environment is finally under control, and she is feeling much better. (Her main symptom was debilitating and chronic fatigue.) These days, she is doing all of the “right” things with mold maintenance and mold avoidance and is extremely proactive about taking charge of her health.

This reader has also been very inspiring for me to communicate with—asking me detailed questions about cleaning methods and practices I use in our home and always thinking out-of-the-box to make products and techniques do double-duty to be more effective and cost efficient. But, with her trip on the horizon, doubt, fear, and anxiety have started to impede her positive momentum. So much so that, rather than being able to focus on her current good health and upcoming travel, she is stuck worrying about all of the potential mold situations she may encounter along-the-way. She is already foreseeing challenges to remain well in new and unknown indoor environments.

To help her get ready for her trip, we have communicated in detail about products to pack, how she can purify her space and air on the airplane, and what mold maintenance and avoidance actions to take when she arrives at her destination. (If you want to read more about these techniques, HERE is my post on travel.) In other words, “on paper,” she is totally prepared and ready for this trip and knows exactly what to do.

Deconstructing the mattress-buying process can help mold patients find and maintain a healthier sleep environment.

Just the other day, I got the following question from a reader:

“Hello. I was wondering if you could recommend a mattress that is good for mold patients? Also, do you have information on how to clean a mattress before you bring it into your home and how to protect it. Maybe a dust cover?”

What a great question! But, it is one that is actually more difficult to give a straight answer for than you would think!

Before getting sick from mold, I never really thought twice about my mattress. I actually think every mattress I had ever had prior to getting married was a hand-me-down mattress from either my parents or one of my sisters. I was always happy to not have to purchase a new one, and to just sleep on whichever one was given to me. Sleep came easy to me then, and the “health” of my mattress did not seem to affect my body whatsoever.

Fast forward to where I am today and where my health is today, (much better, but I still am and will be forever, I think, very mold- and chemically- sensitive); and I feel entirely differently about the whole mattress situation. In fact, my mattress has been one of the items in my home to either make or break a wellness spurt. When you consider the fact that we spend 1/3 of our lives in bed/sleeping, this makes a lot of sense. If your bed and mattress aren’t healthy, you probably will suffer the effects of that. It became clear to me that I was going to have to rethink my mattress when we finally moved back into our home and had to get all new furnishings. Our new mattress sent me into a downward health spiral. My husband had found an allergy-friendly foam mattress and had it delivered to the house. The minute he unwrapped it in our bedroom, I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. It was off-gassing terribly and made my throat and body itch just to be in the same room with it. It literally took me a week to recover and to get the plastic-y, chemically smell out of our room. Have you ever tasted a smell? That is the best way I can describe just how inflammatory it was to my body. I tasted the chemicals from the mattress in my mouth! Thankfully, we were able to return it for a full refund. But, finding another mattress was quite the ordeal. Who would have thought that there was so much to worry about and consider in terms of my health and what mattress I was sleeping on?

This week, I am going to devote time to answering and sharing a recent mold/indoor air quality issue question that came my way. It concerns a very specific way of installing HVAC ductwork, where the HVAC ducts have been placed in or below the concrete floor slab. To better illustrate this to you, I asked a contractor to describe the installation process to me. Here is what he said:

“As the home is being built, trenches are dug in the soil before the concrete foundation is poured. Wooden or concrete blocks are then placed in the trenches and the HVAC ducts are pieced together and placed in the trenches on top of the blocks according to the home’s layout and the HVAC blueprint. Many times, the ducts are in direct contact with the soil. Concrete is then poured around the ducts as they lay in the trenches. Finally, the concrete slab is poured on top of the ducts/trenches to form the home’s foundation.”

This practice of in-slab ducting has become notorious for different types of problems, like functional troubles (lack of air flow or collapsed ductwork), and environmental problems (radon, odors, flooding, mold, insects). The main reason I want to address this question on the blog is because of the many indoor air quality issues inherent in this type of construction that I think people need to be made aware of. I also think this question is an important one, because it involves all of the components of needing to be a “mold detective” and a health advocate for yourself. This is because watching out for potential health hazards in your home and other frequent indoor environments can protect you from long-term health consequences. In other words, if it smells like mold, you can see it, and/or your body feels “off” in a particular environment and like something is making you sick, chances are that your body is right, and it is mold or something environmental. Thus, you have nothing to lose by taking steps to safeguard your health by investigating and fixing your environment as soon as something seems amiss.

When faced with leaving a toxic home, the idea of having to sort through your things before you embark upon your “new” life can be overwhelming. If you are also very sick, the tasks, even simple ones, can pile up, leading to anxiety, depression, and sometimes more illness.

I can definitely empathize. I lived this scenario. I was faced with leaving our home, all of our things, memories and personal items, even though I KNEW it was for the best. At that time, my husband was unwilling to concede. The mold just made me much sicker than it made him, so my body didn’t give me a choice. I took one bin of photos, scrapbooks and toiletries and our children and moved in with my sister for a few months.

My husband stayed behind and attempted to come to terms with what we were facing. Those were very hard times. I believe we both had to experience a grieving process before moving forward. Some of the emotional trauma that incurred still remains. I have made the choice for my sanity to move forward and live in the present and in thankfulness for my reclaimed health, rather than in the past dwelling on what I could have done differently.

If you are experiencing this, I am sure you have come up against conflicting advice in “expert” opinions about remediation, and what you can safely save and clean for mold and what you must discard. It felt “almost impossible” to know where to begin. For example, we all have many possessions that we love and have sentimental value, but we also don’t want to further risk our health by trying to save things that could make us sick or that could contaminate a new, safe environment.

The questions remain:

Who should you listen to?

Should you cut your losses no matter what or try to “clean” things for mold?

One of the things that helps many mold patients during their recovery is connecting with and working with a naturopathic doctor. Luckily for my family, Dr. Dennis pulled us through, helping to identify the mold piece of the puzzle in our home and in our bodies. He also introduced us to protocols that ignited our healing and still continue to help us recover. Dr. Dennis guided phases of my detox, and the dietary- and nutritional supplement-side of things as well. We were very fortunate. But, for many other mold patients, medical doctors fail to see the environmental issues, and only treat immediate symptoms, leaving them still sick and increasingly frustrated. It is not until they try “alternative” therapies and visit naturopathic doctors and/or medical doctors who take an integrative approach to treatment that they finally are able to identify the cause of their illnesses.

In this way, naturopathic doctors are playing an integral part in how environmental illness is treated. They are on the front lines, tirelessly looking at the person, not just the symptom, to see what is happening in a patient’s diet, home, work and personal life to cause whatever illness is going on in the body. Naturopathic doctors help our understanding of how best to fine tune and prime our bodies to withstand environmental toxins. It is the naturopathic doctor’s unique knowledge of the body as a smart and complex system and view of a whole-body approach to healing that I want to shift my focus to today.

More specifically, I want to get a naturopathic doctor’s view of when something like mold becomes the tipping point, driving a major immune reaction, inflammation and illness. When our bodies scream at us that something is wrong, what should we do? What is the “whole body approach” to treating and healing from a mold exposure or mold-instigated illness?

To help answer this question, I was fortunate to be able to speak with Kimberly Williford, MS,RD/LD,NMD, a Board-Certified, licensed Naturopathic Doctor and Registered Dietitian and one of the founding partners of Southern Integrative and Environmental Medical (SIEM) located in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Williford treats environmental toxicity, metabolic dysfunction, hormonal imbalance, and chronic disease, with a focus on longevity and anti-aging. The practice offers comprehensive, individualized and integrative support for its patients.

About Me

Welcome to Mold Free Living

Hi, I’m Catherine, mom, wife, former magazine editor, fitness enthusiast, food-lover and self-admitted clean freak. My husband and my child both have pretty serious health issues that depend on us having a really, really clean and mold-free home environment. I invite you to share what I've learned and what products I use to keep my little family unit healthy!

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Disclaimer

I am not a doctor, medical professional, scientist, professional environmentalist, pathologist, toxicologist, herbalist or mold treatment specialist. I am simply a mold victim who got through my own ordeal with great clinical advice and treatment from a doctor skilled in working with mold patients. I also bring hard-earned knowledge from my years of experience dealing with and remediating my home and body for mold successfully. My family members and I are now symptom free, and our home has tested mycotoxin-free of mold. As with any new products or health protocols, I advise you to seek out your own experts and doctors and to not solely base your recovery on ANY suggestion or method I write about in this blog. I take no responsibility legally or medically.

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Let’s take back our health from environmental toxins and mold-related illness! Living a life free of mold involves continuous learning, being open to change, and a community of people seeking the best for their health.